Interview discusses Wallace Sargent's parental background; influence and encouragement from mother; early schooling in England: technical schools versus academic schools; influence of reading The Children's Encyclopedia at age 10; decision to go beyond trade school; influence of Fred Hoyle's radio broadcasts on astronomy in the late 1940s; Sargent's becoming antireligious; education at Manchester; early theoretical work at Manchester; ability at pattern recognition and recognition of spectra; early preference for steady state model and reasons for that preference; "dark-time" people versus "bright-time" people among astronomical observers; early interests in peculiar spectra: A stars and then Seyfert galaxies; influence of Fritz Zwicky and work on Zwicky compact galaxies; career at Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) and University of California, San Diego; work on high star formation in small galaxies and Seyfert galaxies; training of observational astronomers and recent lack of hands-on experience; specialization of abilities; Sargent's motivation in choosing problems to work on; criteria of observers in selecting problems; attitudes toward the horizon and flatness problems; change in attitude toward the flatness problem after the inflationary universe model; attitude toward the inflationary universe model; reaction to de Lapparent, Geller, and Huchra's work on large-scale inhomogeneities and importance of similar work done earlier by Gregory, Thompson, and others; belief in large-scale homogeneity by reason of the cosmic background radiation; work on Lyman alpha clouds; working relationship of theory and observation in cosmology; seriousness of theories of the very early universe; outstanding problems in cosmology: dark matter; ideal design of the universe; question of whether the universe has a point.